Our sixth Santa Lucia Day

Our St. Lucy's day this year was a test of stamina.  My usual helper is dealing with a cough and the asthma issues that brings with it, so I was on my own when I hopped out of bed at a quarter to five to start the dough rising for St. Lucy's crown. Our lussekatters were yet again a product of the refrigerated dough section of the store, but I did manage to make our braided bread from scratch (thank goodness for this really easy recipe!)

Because Anni needed to be to school early for her class' recitation of The Night Before Christmas, she wore the rather floppy crown (I've got to figure out how to fix that!) but no traditional white dress and red sash this year. I am looking forward to 2020 (yes, I looked it up) when we can have a weekend St. Lucy's day to throw another tea party! 

Daniel is actually the first one of us up usually, so this was a rare chance to let him "sleep in" a little. (I still refuse to refer to 6:30 as sleeping in, but it *is* a lot later that his usual 5:45!)

Then, because we had heard Mlada start to stir anyway, we headed into the little girls' room, where Mlada immediately burst into tears and Colette jumped up to blow out the candles and asked, "Is it my birthday?!"

Here's to a very sweet St. Lucy's day to you all. My she ask Christ to bring light to your darkness.

St. Lucy's Day V

Our Santa Lucia traditions has had to adjust a bit with Anni being in school. While we are looking forward to the day St. Lucy's Day will be on a weekend again and we can resume our community tea parties, we don't want Anni to miss out, so we have actually become a bit more traditional in how we go about things.

Anni and I woke in the wee hours to make some lussekatter... or rather some canned orange rolled re-shaped to look like lussekatter, because sometimes you've just got to do what you've got to do, and saffron is not always in the grocery or liturgical celebration budget.

Then we snuck and sang to Daddy, who then came out and read our St. Lucy book to the girls before we had to get Anni off to school.

Simple, yes, but I'm glad we still managed to keep our tradition somewhat. It's one of my favorites!

St. Lucy, pray for us!